Around the Corner

 Just wondering - if the earth is a globe, how can it have corners?

A message from Santa Claus's garden

Lawyers speak a different language

So is that a yes or a no?  Our devious Justice Secretary isn't saying.

Proud No Longer

Under its new boss, Chris Tang, the Hong Kong Police Force has decided to take my advice and adopt a new motto, reports the HKFP. Instead of being proud and careful, the Force has regretfully ignored my suggestion and will now be “Serving Hong Kong with Honour, Duty and Loyalty”.  Which sounds fine until you ask "loyalty to whom?"  Based on the events of recent weeks, the answer is more likely to be the Chinese Communist Party than the Hong Kong people.

Both Sides Now

You could believe that Donald Trump is sincere in his condemnation of racism following recent mass shootings - or you could look at his past record of racist statements.  The choice is yours.

Chorlton / Hardy

So someone finally told them about this - but what a klutzy solution! And why change the Chinese as well?

Carrie on Lying

Does anyone in Hong Kong really believe that Carrie Lam thought up the controversial extradition bill all by her vacuous self?  It has Beijing's fingerprints all over it, not least in the indecent haste with which the usually lethargic government is pushing through a .change widely opposed by the legal sector, many of Hong Kong's major trading partners, large parts of the business sector (including some the government can usually rely on for support), and most importantly, the majority of the Hong Kong people.

Then there was her description the other day of the Tiananmen Massacre candlelight vigil as "some sort of gathering to commemorate a particular historic incident".  I'm not a violent man, but I really wanted to slap her around a bit and shout "It was a bloody mass murder, not a 'historic incident'" in her uncaring ears.

And a day or two ago, she even started playing the mother card: "As Chief Executive and a mother of two...".  Really, give us a break.

Caring, Sharing, Racially Comparing

This curious question is part of the application form for the HK$4,000 Caring and Sharing Scheme handout, one of the government's series of cockamamie programmes for giving back the taxpayers' money with the minimum of rational targeting and the maximum of bureaucratic expense and inconvenience.

Curious because the scheme is open to all Hong Kong residents with no racial qualifications, so there is no obvious need to ask the question.  Indeed, to do so is probably in breach of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance.

Curious also for the apparently random selection of countries included.  While there are substantial numbers of South Asians in Hong Kong, few of them are from Sri Lanka, while those of white European ancestry - a much larger group - are not included at all; nor are Africans or Arabs.  And while the Scheme has been promoted in various ethnic minority languages, these do not correspond with the list in the questionnaire.

And curious too because most of those listed are not ethnicities at all, but nationalities.  By Bengali the form's compilers probably mean citizens of Bangladesh, but millions of those with Indian nationality are also ethnic Bengalis.  Sri Lanka has two major ethnic groups - Sinhalese and Tamils - while all the countries on the list have multiple ethnic groups or at least substantial minorities.

So what is this all about?

Everything old is new again

It appears that "Where innovation meets tradition" is developer-speak for "Where we pull down an old building and replace it with a new one".  Hmm.

Dr Johnson's Prescription

Look up the spelling in the dictionary, stupid!

One Country, Two Languages

Predictably, following Eddie Chu's contentious disqualification from a village election, pro-Beijing forces are now suggesting that he should also be stripped of his LegCo seat. What is interesting about this is not their typically fatuous arguments, but how mainlandization is infiltrating the language of politics in Hong Kong. DAB leader Stalin, sorry Starry, Lee is quoted as saying:

“We wanted the Legislative Council to be more harmonious as there is only around a year left for this term. But there is a new development and we have to discuss it.”

"Harmonious", in this sense, is pure mainland-speak, meaning purged of opposition voices.  In standard English, the correct word for this is "unrepresentative" or "undemocratic".  George Orwell, thou shouldst be living at this hour!


And a postscript: after writing this post, I came across another example of how "harmony" apparently has a different meaning in the mainland - in this case the toleration of threats and violence:

                ‘Preserve family harmony’: Chinese courts give domestic abusers a pass

A&E – the difference between

In British slang, it is commonly said of an ignorant person that he "doesn't know his arse from his elbow".  However, one would expect medically-trained individuals to have a somewhat more accurate grasp of basic human anatomy.  Sadly, an elderly patient in Queen Elizabeth Hospital recently found herself the victim of incompetent radiology staff who don't appear to know the arse from the other nearby orifice. As one medical specialist drily commented, "it should not have happened because there were usually no difficulties locating the vagina and anus" – something most of us learn quite early in life.

A nation of crybabies

Quick - call Guinness World Records!  Just by talking, one mild-mannered young man in Hong Kong has succeeded in making 1.4 billion people cry, which must be some sort of record.

Except, like most CCP propaganda, it isn't true.  "Hurt the feelings of the Chinese people" is one of those stock phrases, like "foreign interference in China's affairs", which the Party Pavlovically [is that a word?] trots out in response to certain stimuli as a substitute for genuine thought.  But if you actually asked all 1.4 billion Chinese if Andy Chan's FCC speech had hurt their feelings, 99.99% of them would reply "Andy who?"

The reality is that China's highly efficient censorship machine shields most of the country's citizens from being exposed to anything that might challenge the official, albeit fictional, narrative of universal national unity and social harmony under the benign guidance of the all-knowing Party.  And you can hardly have your feelings hurt by something you aren't even allowed to be aware of.

But never mind, China, in addition to "largest population", which you hold already, there are still plenty of other categories you can claim a record in.  How about "largest number of Muslims forcibly detained for so-called re-education"?  Or you could try "biggest area of ocean claimed on the basis of dubious historical evidence" - that's a popular one.

Ministry of Truth

Story here.  It's good to see her free at last.

Is that how it's speld?

"Jettison Held" says the Doctor Who soundtrack.  Unfortunately someone in the BBC Props Department seems to need spelling lessons!

Leading from Behind

As if he has no responsibility for the outcome of his own actions.

Almost Right

But not spelling, apparently!

Common Language

Got to admit it's getting better

It appears that the MTR Corporation defines "improvement" as "impeding passenger flow by cramming more unneeded shops into already congested station concourses in order to make a few extra bucks".  But hey, this is Hong Kong.

Welcome This Friday

I'm wondering why the World Taekwondo Federation is running a bar in Hong Kong.  And also why the Federation is changing its name to "World Taekwondo".  I can't imagine.